News Clips

Stephen Spaulding, Common Cause: "It is a crime to incite rebellion. And that is a statute that I hope investigators, federal investigators, the District of Columbia, and others will investigate and unspool whether, in fact, he meets that standard."

“Congress should also explore the idea of independent clemency boards to review clemency petitions and advise the president. This could eliminate biases and conflicts of interest inherent in the current system, which often relies on prosecutors at the Department of Justice to serve as a check on their own prosecutions. Members of such a clemency board should reflect our country's diversity and be representative of stakeholders inside and outside the criminal justice system,” said Karen Hobert Flynn, president of Common Cause.

“Big time bait-and-switch by Donald Trump and a bunch of other politicians lower in the food chain capitalizing on that opportunity — to rip their own supporters off, really,” said Paul S. Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause, a government watchdog group in Washington, D.C. “The donors who were defrauded by and large in November and December by team Trump — these were elderly Republican donors who …it’s just despicable to prey on that donor pool, in my opinion,” Ryan said.

The fundraising numbers signal just how potent the election fraud argument became with Trump's most loyal supporters, experts told ABC News. Paul S. Ryan, a vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause, a Washington-based good-government group, called the fundraising effort deceptive. "It was based entirely on fraud ... by Team Trump alleging that there were problems in the election, that Trump needed money to hire lawyers to fight and that he won the election," Ryan said. "And in my experience watchdogging money in politics closely for more than 20 years, this is unprecedented."

“We should have standardize rules and that’s what this bill is doing,” said Stephen Spaulding, senior counsel for public policy at the advocacy group Common Cause. “This hopefully would tamp down on all of that chaotic litigation by getting these rules settled and setting a national standard.

Now is the time for political leadership. In the wake of the Jan. 6 armed insurrection attempt to overturn our 2020 presidential election, we should expect our elected leaders to strongly confront the lies, conspiracy theories and white nationalism that have polarized this nation. But it will take more than that. Our democracy was, and continues to be, under attack, and we must immediately fix it. The U.S. House of Representatives will soon be voting on H.R. 1, the For the People Act, the most transformative democracy reform package since the Watergate era. This comprehensive set of democratic reforms and anti-corruption measures will protect and expand the right to vote, reduce the role of big money in politics, end racial and partisan gerrymandering and amplify the voices of hard-working Americans.